On This Day in History

c/o Rutgers University

The first one all year. . .

1777 — Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia. Both a Senator and three-time Speaker of the House of Representatives, Clay was a strong proponent of the “American System” that benefited industry to a great extent. Styled “The Great Compromiser” and “The Western Star,” a Congressional panel in 1957 named Clay as one of the five all-time greatest Senators (along with John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, Robert Taft and Daniel Webster).

He died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C. in 1852. Clay was 75-years-old. Subsequently he was the first person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

1861 — Beginning at 4:30 a.m., Confederate forces commenced their bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Robert Anderson agreed to evacuate.

Amazingly there was no loss of life on either side during the engagement, although a gun explosion during the surrender ceremonies two days later resulted in two Union deaths. The War Between the States had officially begun.

1908 — Robert Lee Scott, Jr. was born in Waynesboro, Georgia. He is best known for his book God is My Co-Pilot, a memoir about his time as a member of the 1st American Volunteer Group (“The Flying Tigers”) during World War II.

Scott shot down down 13 Japanese aircraft en route to becoming one of our earliest fighter aces of the War. He served in the United States Army Air Forces for 25 years and retired a Brigadier General in 1957. He died in his native Georgia in 2006. General Scott was 97-years-old.

1934 — The strongest surface wind gust ever recorded (to that point in history) is measured at 231 mph on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. The record stood for 62 years until a 253 mph gust was recorded at Australia's Barrow Island during Cyclone Olivia in 1996.

1945 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt died just months after winning an unprecedented fourth term. Our 32nd President, and perhaps the last liberal Democrat for whom I may ever hold a modicum of lasting respect, was a relatively young 63-years-old.

1961 — Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to perform a manned orbital flight. His time in space lasted just under two hours.

1981 — The Space Shuttle Columbia launches in NASA’s first shuttle mission (STS-1) from the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The shuttle itself suffered an untimely demise shortly before the conclusion of its 28th mission (STS-107) on February 1, 2003.

1987 — The lovely and vivacious Brooklyn Decker was born in Kettering, Ohio. But the Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl is a Carolina girl at heart.

1989 — Sugar Ray Robinson, the undisputed best pound-for-pound boxer of all-time, died in Culver City, California. He compiled a 173-19-6 (108 KO, 2 NC) record over a career that spanned a quarter-century, including an almost unbelievable tally at one point of 128-1-2. He was 67-years-old.

1999 — President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. Scandalous, impeached, and ultimately disbarred, good ol’ Bill sure was fun.

2002 — Religion of Peace: Just seven months after 9/11, a female suicide bomber from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade detonated a bomb at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing seven and wounding 104.


Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

Picked from the ‘net, Vol. II

More that caught my eye recently. And remember, the original source of all pics is unknown unless otherwise stated.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: A proper one-liner escapes me

As if grabbing is ankles for the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan wasn’t bad enough. . .

© Scott Stantis, The Chicago Tribune

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Duplicity at home and abroad



© Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune

© Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner

“Runaway slave”

C.L. Bryant, a former NAACP chapter president and current Tea Party activist, is set to debut a documentary-style movie about his journey away from “the Progressive plantations of the government masters, the eyes of liberal overseers and the whips of conformity.” His trailer is definitely worth a look.

Some pics that caught my eye

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Regarding Andrew Breitbart’s untimely death earlier today, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi wrote “Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.” So someone vandalized (so to speak) his Wikipedia page, replacing his profile shot with a picture of excrement — to which I say. . . good. F--k him.

c/o The Jane Dough

Just Thinking Out Loud: A certain repeat of ‘04

From season 8, episode 8 of South Park

The ingenious, if not disturbed, minds of “South Park” compared the 2004 presidential election to deciding between a giant douche (John Kerry) and a turd sandwich (George W. Bush). This year, and no matter who gets the nod for the GOP, the American electorate will face the same options. The only difference now is that the giant douche will be a Republican and the turd sandwich will undoubtedly be the Democrat.

Original source unknown

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Self-explanatory

I couldn’t pick just one. They stand on their own merit. . .

© Dick Locher, Chicago Tribune



© Michael Ramirez, Investors’ Business Daily

© Olle Johansson

© Rick McKee, The Augusta (GA) Chronicle

© Walt Handelsman, Newsday

Highly inappropriate, but. . .

Editorial Sketch of the Week: They can never resist

When Charles Krauthammer referenced the left’s “social engineering hubris,” this is a prime example of what he was talking about.

© Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant

Postscript: Mr. Englehart landed in a bit of hot water recently for examining an unmentionable truth. Click here and judge for yourself.

Happy (belated) birthday, Mr. President

Our 40th President would have turned 101-years-old three days ago. Although the well-known pic below has been clearly photoshopped, it’s a nice way to remember one of our all-time finest anyway.

Original source unknown

And remember kids. . .

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Sunday’s Quote: Class warfare

c/o Gateway Pundit

The term referenced above has been used, and will continue to be exhausted, from now to Election Day. There’s really no escaping it, so we may as well have a more distinct view of its meaning.

Presently class warfare consists of elected officials persuading the underprivileged to believe that their financial subjugation is solely the result of an affluent minority — let’s call them the “1%” — who doesn’t pay their “fair share.” While pandering and demonizing may offer the perception of sympathy for the less fortunate, it’s the riling of mass dissention that permits those same bureaucrats to deflect from their unprecedented fiscal recklessness, evidently for the sake of suffocating (if not eliminating) the economic model that has afforded so much, in exchange for initiating policies that both embolden goverment and penalize personal accomplishment.

This is not to imply that the tax code is an example of government at its best. Far from it. But the numbers don’t lie.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, the wealthiest 1% of the population earned 19% of the total income and paid 37% of all income tax in 2007, the year before Obama was elected (and long before chatter about “fair share” became commonplace). Moreover the top 10% accounted for 68% of federal tax revenue, while the bottom 50% — those of us below the median earnings level — earned a paltry 13% of the income and paid just 3% of the taxes.

Kiplinger’s updated numbers, which are nearly identical to the data above, can be found here.

The humble purveyor of this blog is not a one-percenter; not by any stretch. But I would like to be among them one day. And because no nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity, people would be wise to resist anything that could stymie their ability reach the pinnacle in this, the greatest of all nations.

No thank you, Mr. President. A fundamental transformation of our nation is not required. Taxes are not the real problem. Federal expenditures, and the pseudo-philosophy that drives such disbursements, are. Here is syndicated columnist George F. Will to expand upon the point.

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“Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage.

“The left’s centuries-old mission is to increase social harmony by decreasing antagonisms arising from disparities of wealth – to decrease inequality by increasing government’s redistributive activities. Such government constantly expands under the unending, indeed intensifying, pressures to correct what it disapproves of – the distribution of wealth produced by consensual market activities. But as government presumes to dictate the correct distribution of social rewards, the maelstrom of contemporary politics demonstrates that social strife, not solidarity, is generated by government transfer payments to preferred groups.  . . .

“People are less dissatisfied by what they lack than by what others have. And when government engages in redistribution in order to maximize the happiness of citizens who became more envious as they become more comfortable, government becomes increasingly frenzied and futile.”
~ from “Government: The redistributionist behemoth” by George F. Will, The Washington Post; January 6, 2012

Editorial Sketch of the Week: Waiting. . .

© Jeff Stahler, formerly of The Columbus (OH) Dispatch

And remember kids. . .

Original source unknown

A Harvard guy explains capitalism

Jeff Miron, Ph.D. is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Though he’s a staunch libertarian who believes that all narcotics should be legalized — a rather common position among the mass of Ron Paul supporters — Miron was also a candid detractor of both President Obama’s financial industry bailout and his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., “Obamacare”).

Take just a few minutes and listen to the good doctor explain the free market system that has afforded our nation so much. And then contrast his words with the guiding principles implemented by the current administration.

Sunday’s Quote: Teddy’s rebuttal to the Occupiers

c/o American Gallery

Although a recent story from LiveScience.com senior writer Stephanie Pappas claims otherwise, it seems the United States is now fundamentally divided into dual factions: those who know what America is, and those who want our Republic, despite their amicable rhetoric, to become something vastly different.

It’s the latter who concerns a substantial portion of the populace most, especially since we began reaping the benefit of choosing one of their own to lead our nation. Referencing Obama’s State of the Union address, syndicated columnist George Will wrote, “Progressive presidents use martial language as a way of encouraging Americans to confuse civilian politics with military exertions, thereby circumventing an impediment to progressive aspirations — the Constitution and the patience it demands.”

He concluded, “Like other progressive presidents fond of military metaphors, [Obama] rejects the patience of politics required by the Constitution he has sworn to uphold.”

Judging from Will’s assertions, one might assume that an Occupier was elected to reside in The White House. It’s not such a stretch considering the hordes of would-be revolutionaries who have taken to the streets in protest all over the world via the belief that ordinary citizens are held down almost entirely by the ultra-wealthy few. If such a driving sentiment isn’t central to the core of Alinsky-inspired class warfare, nothing is.

Nevertheless, the quote included below is not to sing the praises of a flawless system. Far from it. Rather, the words of our 26th President (one of the finest) are tantamount to the hazards of embracing alternatives that are proven to be epic failures already, as the avant-garde Left so often does. Indeed Teddy seemed to understand these Occupier types long before any of them were born, in part because their mantra is not new. Here is Theodore Roosevelt to expand upon the point.

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“. . .as a rule, the business of our people is conducted with honesty and probity, and this applies alike to farms and factories, to railroads and banks, to all our legitimate commercial enterprises.

“In any large body of men, however, there are certain to be some who are dishonest, and if the conditions are such that these men prosper or commit their misdeeds with impunity, their example is a very evil thing for the community. Where these men are business men of great sagacity and of temperament both unscrupulous and reckless, and where the conditions are such that they act without supervision or control and at first without effective check from public opinion, they delude many innocent people into making investments or embarking in kinds of business that are really unsound. When the misdeeds of these successfully dishonest men are discovered, suffering comes not only upon them, but upon the innocent men whom they have misled.

“It is a painful awakening, whenever it occurs; and, naturally, when it does occur those who suffer are apt to forget that the longer it was deferred the more painful it would be. In the effort to punish the guilty it is both wise and proper to endeavor so far as possible to minimize the distress of those who have been misled by the guilty. Yet it is not possible to refrain because of such distress from striving to put an end to the misdeeds that are the ultimate causes of the suffering, and, as a means to this end, where possible to punish those responsible for them. There may be honest differences of opinion as to many governmental policies; but surely there can be no such differences as to the need of unflinching perseverance in the war against successful dishonesty.”
~ from Theodore Roosevelt’s annual Message to Congress; December 3, 1907

Editorial Sketch of the Week: What bias?

© Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez, Investors’ Business Daily

Just Thinking Out Loud: While “fairness” is referenced. . .

Original source indeterminable

The State of the Union – hopefully Obama’s last – will begin soon. Whereas the President is sure to employ rhetoric about paying our fair share, let us never forget about policies that make George W. Bush appear fiscally responsible in comparison. There is nothing fair about that. So call it racism, ignorance, bigotry, or any other catch term if necessary, because that says far more about you than it does me.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: As Congress returns. . .

© R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sunday’s Quote: A “change” for the better?

c/o FrontPageMag

While an array of social and political circumstances guarantee various echelons of upheaval on any given day, this current era may well mark the first time in which one could rightly contend that persistent feelings of something which looms on the horizon is, indeed, more than a mere gut feeling – an issue made worse by those in positions of authority whose apparent indifference suggests that the welfare of the Republic has been compromised by a more sorted agenda that is vastly inconsistent with our establishing principles.

Dismiss this as conspiracy if you like, but Obama and his minions have made their intentions clear. Only those who refuse to see it will remain blind. But do not fret. Our past Commanders-in-Chief have offered rebuttals already.

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“The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self-government means self-support.”
~ Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (R-MA, a legit small government Conservative), from his address to the Massachusetts State Senate; January 7, 1914

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“Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination. All freedom-loving nations, not the United States alone, are facing a stern challenge from the Communist tyranny. In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.

“Invasion and conquest by Communist armies would be a horror beyond our capacity to imagine. But invasion and conquest by Communist ideas of right and wrong would be just as bad. For us to embrace the methods and morals of communism in order to defeat Communist aggression would be a moral disaster worse than any physical catastrophe. If that should come to pass, then the Constitution and the Declaration would be utterly dead and what we are doing today would be the gloomiest burial in the history of the world.”
~ Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United States (D-MO, a Southern Baptist and card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who advocated Civil Rights), from his address at the National Archives dedicating a shrine for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights; December 15, 1952

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Football & Obama

It was difficult to pick just one:

© Drew Litton

© Eric Allie